Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

Some people may disagree with my choice not to condone ethical issues: these people want to save brands' reputation.

That is the reason why the common attitude is not to tighten up the ship because of the reputation.

Self regulation of a profession (bankers, auditors) is agreement between fellow professionals to deny or hush up issues.

The consequence is that the root causes of these issues are never corrected and therefore the reputational risk is going on and even growing as dishonest professional are definitely not repudiated and may feel supported in their drifts.

This phenomenon is particularly visible and critical in small centers like Luxembourg, the Isle of Mans or Jersey.

Such small centers are particularly vulnerable in a world of transparency and communication.

PwC's 11th Annual Global CEO Survey examines how CEOs perceive the business environment in which they are operating, and how an increasingly connected world affects the way their companies function and achieve success. It also explores the impact of an increasingly connected world on the way in which companies work, grow, deal with risk and ultimately achieve business success.

When looking for some critical keywords relating to the reputational risk, it appears that some keywords are missing in the report : ethics, ethical, deontology. There are 3 times the word integrity and there are 13 times the word "compliance".

This word is a charade in financial institutions. When reading the Société Général's website it is stated:

At Société Générale, compliance is regarded as a positive factor that actively contributes to the expansion of the business. It is seen not so much as a series of constraints and restrictions, but rather as the concrete implementation of a set of values that need to be adopted by all the staff, whatever their level of responsibility.

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I would like to say a couple of words about the situation of the Société Générale.

If the issue takes place in France, one the one hand there are subsidiaries of the Société Générale in other financial centers and on the other hand what hapened is definitely an ethical alert for every financial center.

I do think that both the trader and the bank (the brand) are victims of a lax system that is supported (some would say promoted) at the European level where the rule of business is unfortunately more important than ethics : money over ethics.

What does the issue mean ?

1) This is evidence that internal control and internal audit are not working properly despite procedures that are mandatory but not necessary enforced as they should be.

2) This is evidence that external audit are not working properly despite procedures that are mandatory but not necessary enforced as they should be.

3) This is evidence that supervisory authorities are not doing the relevant supervision.

All that is true as well for AML.

Red flags are knowingly ignored provided that the business is growing.

Despite warnings from Eurex about the trader's risky behaviour, nobody was willing to tighten up the ship : everyone was satisfied with the trader's explanation without verifying : the trader was making money so was making the bank.

Serious reputational risk due to poor ethics actually depends on the size of the jurisdiction : the smaller it is the higher the risk of collapse of the cente : this is definitely an alert for small centers in the framework of this blog.